Described herein are aspects generally related to communication systems, and more particularly, to switching between downlink and uplink wireless communications.
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various telecommunication services such as telephony, video, data, messaging, and broadcasts. Typical wireless communication systems may employ multiple-access technologies capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing available system resources (e.g., bandwidth, transmit power). Examples of such multiple-access technologies include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems, single-carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) systems, and time division synchronous code division multiple access (TD-SCDMA) systems.
These multiple access technologies have been adopted in various telecommunication standards to provide a common protocol that enables different wireless devices to communicate on a municipal, national, regional, and even global level. An example of a telecommunication standard is Long Term Evolution (LTE). LTE is a set of enhancements to the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) mobile standard promulgated by Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). It is designed to better support mobile broadband Internet access by improving spectral efficiency, lower costs, improve services, make use of new spectrum, and better integrate with other open standards using OFDMA on the downlink (DL), SC-FDMA on the uplink (UL), and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna technology. However, as the demand for mobile broadband access continues to increase, further improvements in LTE technology may be desired. Preferably, these improvements should be applicable to other multi-access technologies and the telecommunication standards that employ these technologies.
In wireless communication systems employing legacy LTE, a plurality of UEs served by a particular eNodeB may be scheduled resources for communicating with the eNodeB over one or more channels using transmission time intervals (TTI) on the order of a 1 millisecond subframe. As UE capabilities and demand for bandwidth increases, lower latency in communications may be desired.